By Nabeel Hashmi
All the mud is slinged upon the Pakistan team and management on the spot-fixing scam and rightly so for their alleged involvement in the crime but what about the role of International Cricket Council’s (ICC’s) anti-corruption unit (ACSU)?
The match-fixing, spot-fixing whatever you want to call it, is not anything new for the cricket’s supreme cricket body so how can it be possible that the officials of anti-corruption unit were unaware of these mysterious activities?
“The players should be banned for life” is the roar of the whole world, the scream to prohibit the Pakistani players is correct but why only they? The dubious role of the members of Icc’s anti-corruption unit should also be questioned that how on earth the highest paid personnel for stopping corruption in the game didn’t have a clue and a reporter of a newspaper planned a successful sting operation against the bookie and the players which should have been done by the ICC.The officials of ACSU should also be interogated and they should be suspend on their pathetic performance. It is a clear case of anti-corruption unit’s failure to detect and caught the bookies that are using players for their immoral purposes.
The players who are found guilty should be handed out an exemplary punishment only if they, just like Hansie Cronje, Salim Malik and Azharuddin who were banned for life to send out a resounding message to all those people who wants to weaken the ethical roots of the gentlemen’s game.
There have been strong cases of bookies approaching players in the past and in present now. Former greats have been raising their concern of alleged match and spot fixing in the game and the need to wipe it out for the betterment of cricket but still International cricket governing body have not caught even a single bookie on their own in the recent past.
It isn’t the case that the corruption in cricket is only prevailing particularly in Pakistan, the evils and demon can easily be found in other nations of cricket but only if the double standards of judging can be rectified. In the past also South African Herschelle Gibbs, West Indian Marlon Samuels, Indian Ajay Jadeja and Manoj Prabhakar notably have been punished which clearly tells the sorry tale of players belonging to major teams who have been found guilty of being corrupt.
The introducion of T20 cricket has paved way for betting and most notably the Indian Premier League (IPL) which comes under ICC's wing. The grand finale of the IPL season three was the most controversial and doubt full match of all for officials who monitor all the games with an eagle eye to pounce on to any hint of the match being fixed. First Sachin Tendulkar have looked to deliberately scoop a simple catch which was held at mid-off boundary. Furthermore, Kieron Pollard one of the biggest hitters in the game was sent at number eight by Mumbai Indians with the final already gifted to Chennai Super Kings and only three overs remaining further cleared the air that the game was more than doubtful to be a fixed match.
Not only this JP Duminy was also sent late down the order at number seven. If that was not all to quite clearly to prove what game was going on in the match the astounding decision to promote Harbajhan Singh to number four and Ambathi Rayudu to sixth spot ahead of the international superstars who were brought in for millions of dollars turned the heads of millions of viewers0 making them believe that the main players are outside the ground not within the rope.
Understandably superstars are bought in to win the games not to be used as tail-enders. But still the inquiry was never setup for keeping a check on irregular activites and decisions in IPL.It looks ICC is fully supporting BCCI in fixing matches. The reason for putting the blame on ICC is that they never bothered to look into the suspicious matters of IPL. The first edition was won by Rajhastan Royals who were the underdogs, second edition was won by Deccan Chargers a team who finished at the bottom in the first season and the third was gifted to Chennai super Kings by the best team of the competetion Mumbai Indians. It is very simple loose when the rate is high on winning as everybody puts in their money for that team to win and win when the rate is low as everybody bet on your loss,this is all what fixing requires.
All the suspicious matches in three seasons of IPL should be reviewed and the suspects should not only punished be punished, their franchises should also be scrached because players do what their owners orders. Shahrukh Khan just like many others have invested millions and millions on Kolkata nightriders but he hardly seems to be worried on his team's poor showing in all three seasons. The reason behind it is simple, his franchise is earning heavily on loosing more than tripple they can earn y winning through betting and match fixing.
The suspicion raised by the IPL3 final and all the other suspicious events tandem with the 'fixing' saga prompted to raise the concern on crystal clear inquiring of all the matches which looks doubtful, its high time that ICC should start looking at all the matters with a same eye without being biased against any cricket board -- no matter how wealthiest and strong board of the globe it is, may it be Board of Control for cricket in India (BCCI), Pakistan cricket board (PCB), Australian cricket board (ACB), English and Wales cricket Board (ECB) etc.
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